Manipulation with Flatland

Students:
Craig Black
David Choi
Fabien Defays
Michael Northrop
Peng Pan
 Professors:
Kevin Lynch

Dynamic Manipulation

By not grasping, a simple robot with few degrees-of-freedom can control an object with more degrees-of-freedom by exploiting dynamic effects, such as centrifugal and Coriolis forces. These extra degrees-of-freedom come from manipulation phases such as controlled slipping and rolling. In contrast, a robot that carries an object with a firm grasp requires as many degrees-of-freedom as those of the object it wishes to control.

Our work on dynamic manipulation has been on motion planning, feedback control, and implementation of robotic tasks such as dynamically snatching an object from a table (using inertial forces to keep the object fixed to the robot), rolling an object on the surface of the manipulator, and throwing and catching. Nonlinear optimization is used to plan robot trajectories that achieve the desired motion via coupling forces through the nonprehensile (graspless) contact.

See also: Parts Feeding with Flatland, Instructions (ps), Description and hardware, or a QuickTime video (2136K).

References to relevant papers are given below.

  • K. M. Lynch, M. Northrop, and P. Pan. Stable limit sets in a dynamic parts feeder. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, to appear. html, pdf

  • K. M. Lynch, M. Northrop, and P. Pan. Stable limit set behavior in a dynamic parts feeder. 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Maui, Hawaii, November 2001. abstract, pdf (113 K)

  • K. M. Lynch and C. K. Black. Recurrence, controllability and stabilization of juggling. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 17(2):113-124, April 2001. abstract, pdf (452 K)

  • K. M. Lynch and C. K. Black. Control of underactuated manipulation by real-time nonlinear optimization. 9th International Symposium on Robotics Research, Snowbird, UT, October 1999. abstract, postscript (2800 K)

  • M. Northrop. Parts Feeding with a Throwing Robot. Masters Thesis, Northwestern University, September 1999. abstract, postscript (4693 K), pdf (1426 K), ppt for defense (3107 K)

  • C. K. Black and K. M. Lynch. Planning and control for planar batting and hopping. 36th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, September 1998. abstract, postscript (3467 K), pdf (225 K)

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Last updated BPD 9/11/03.